The present invention generally relates to Voice-over-IP (VoIP) and, more specifically, to a method and system for handling and adapting varying frame rates in audio communications.
VoIP calls transfer audio data across an IP (Internet Protocol) network as audio frames, each frame containing a specific amount of audio data. Currently, there are various standards that can be used to encode audio data in a frame. Some of these standards vary with respect to how much audio data is to be included in a frame. As a result, for equipment supporting different frame sizes to be able to communicate with each other, conversion of frame rates has to be carried out.
For example, phone A may be only capable of handling 20 ms of audio data per frame, while phone B may be only capable of handling 30 ms of audio data per frame. This is a common incompatibility issue when using the voice codec G.711. Because of the incompatibility between the two phones, these two phones cannot transfer audio data directly between them. Even if a VoIP gateway is used to facilitate communications between the two phones, the VoIP gateway has to adapt the different frame rates to match the phones' respective requirements.
Hence, it would be desirable to develop a method and system that is capable of solving the foregoing problem, as well as others, by providing the capability to adapt varying frames rates in audio data communications.